Category: Mexican

Hot and spicy are its main traits with lots of Salsa. There will always be Margarita on the table in a Mexican restaurant.

Restaurant Nouri – Crossroads Cooking

When I was working in Singapore last week, I managed to have dinner at one of the Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants. Sitting at #39, Restaurant Nouri has only been opened for a couple of years. However, they have already had a Michelin star under their belt.

Chef Ivan Brehm and his team gave us this very interesting dining concept called ‘crossroads cooking’. The dining room is also where the chef prepared all of our meals.

They served four pre-dining dishes. They also advised that we could re-order sourdough bread as many times as we want. This is a very good idea as you would want to soak up all of those nice sauce!

The first two that came with the bread was their rendition of silken tofu and vegetable broth. The tofu was more like a dipping sauce for the bread!

The next two was cold kimchi made from abalone with daikon and nashi pear and Chinese bitter gourd salad. I can understand why the two had to be consumed side-by-side as the bitter gourd was really bitter. It accentuated the kimchi cold and sour taste.

The 7-course ‘Omakase’ from Restaurant Nouri

They had an option of 5- or 7- course menu as well as set or omakase. I could see some of the omakase menu was pretty similar to the set menu.

The first course was Hamachi sashimi with caviar and chilled onion consomme. It was a nice and fresh sashimi with very nice vinaigrette… the reason why you should keep asking for bread!

The second course was their rendition of prawn bouillabaisse with saffron jelly. They used the reduction from the prawn head to make the thick soup.

Their rendition of cheong fun (or rice noodles) was one of my favourites on the night. Not only they used black truffle, underneath that green cheong fun there was Alaskan snow crab! Even the foamy bit was very nice!

The second last main dish was kimedai fish with scales and black pepper sauce. Yes, they prepared the fish with its scaled. The scales were very crunchy and almost like crackers The fish was perfectly cooked and went really well with slightly hot black pepper sauce.

I wouldn’t blame you if you think this next dish as a chocolate cake with truffle. They did incorporate chocolate but only as the powder around the plate.

This dish was actually wagyu rib eye with Mexican’s mole sauce. However, they used the traditional ingredients called ‘keluwak’ to darken the colour.

Desserts at Restaurant Nouri

Before we started with the desserts, there was a bowl of Gooseberry granita with peach and champagne. It was very nice and refreshing!

The first dessert looked quite simple but it was actually pretty sophisticated. The dish was Japanese ichigo with azuki beans, sansho pepper and kinome leaf with strawberry sorbet.

The dish was sweet, sour, cold, crunchy… and hot! Every now and then there was this kick from the sansho pepper that made the dish very lively.

The last dish was 48-hour baked orange with assam tea ice cream, cream and some jelly that tasted quite bitter.

I have never tasted something quite like this before.

The final verdict for Restaurant Nouri

Restaurant Nouri clearly deserved its Michelin star and the #39 spot in the Asia’s Best 50 restaurants. They have a unique table arrangement and impeccable service.

Do you think I should go?

Definitely! Chef Ivan will surely treat you well!

Rating:

Nouri

9.5 / 10

Taste: 9.5 / 10

Price: $225 pp for 7-course Omakase

Place: 10.0 / 10

Details:

72 Amoy Street, Singapore 069891

+65 6221 4148

http://nouri.com.sg/

Aug 1, 2019
The Mexican Cafe

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The Mexican Cafe has moved to a new venue, please check restaurant’s facebook page for its new address.

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The Mexican Cafe Review:

We went to The Mexican Cafe by accident as we walked down Enmore Road trying to figure out what to eat. We went in to the usual Mexican’s friendly vibe. They just recently opened the restaurant and did not have a liquor license yet. So, yes, bring your BYO Mexican beers and/or Tequila (a little note: please drink responsibly!)).

Looking at the menu, I was fixated on the chimichanga – more on that later on. They also have specials throughout the week, most notably $3 Taco Tuesday.

Small Nachos – $14 – A pile of corn chips topped with sour cream and layered with salsa, beans, cheese, and your choice of filling (beef, chicken, fish, seafood, pork, or veg)

Pictured below is a SMALL plate of nachos. We thought it might be perfect for the little one. However, we ended up eating most of it. I don’t want to think about how big is the large one!

Soft Tacos (Beef) – $13.50 – Two soft flour tortillas filled with lettuce, salsa, cheese and sour cream. Served with beans and rice

Taco is the baseline dish in a Mexican restaurant. It is the safe bet and can hardly go wrong.

The portion for the soft taco is also quite big for us.

Chimichanga – $19 – A large tortilla filled with beans and cheese, deep fried, with your choice of filling (beef, chicken, fish, seafood, pork, or veg). Served with rice and beans.

The chimichanga was big and sinful with so much cheese and beans and meat. To top it off, it was deep fried!

You can have assortments of filling, but we chose seafood on this occasion.

(SUPER) Hot Sauce

Long time readers and friends might know that I really hate chili sauce. So, I don’t know what I was thinking when testing one of the hottest sauces in the world. I’m pretty sure it’s borderline madness!

If my math doesn’t betray me, this sauce is 357 times hotter than the normal Tabasco!

Little did i know that I just tried #8 hottest sauce in the world!!! Clocked in at 250,000 SHU Not bad for someone who hates chilli 🌶🌶🌶♨️♨️♨️

A post shared by All About Food Blog (@aaf_blog) on Aug 2, 2017 at 3:04am PDT

The final verdict for The Mexican Cafe

The Mexican Cafe ticked a lot of boxes for me: big portion, nice tasting, and friendly atmosphere.

Do you think I should go?

Definitely! The BYO thing is also nice, eh?

The great thing about Enmore is that there are a lot of things to do around the area. Including if you are having early dinner before the concert at Enmore Theatre.

Rating for The Mexican Cafe:

7.5 / 10

Taste: 7.5 / 10

Price: $20 – $25 per person

Place: 7.5 / 10

Details:

80 Enmore Road, Newtown 2042

+61 2 9357 6100

Sep 25, 2017
El Topo Mexican

Review:

Before I decided to write about it, I have been to El Topo Mexican restaurant twice: The first one was a small lunch with colleague and the second one was a bigger lunch with friends and family. El Topo Mexican is located on the rooftop of The Eastern in Bondi Junction.

Without further ado, lets get on with the food!

Chapulines – Roast Crickets, Chile Garlic & Lime – $7

It is not a typo from carrots nor the name of an Australian sports. It is really a bowl of roast and crispy crickets for you to enjoy. I asked a Mexican friend of mine who happened to have lunch with us that day. He confirmed that it was a genuine dish from Mexico although it might not be as common in Mexico City.

I must say it’s quite challenging for my friends to try these out.

Chapulines

Taco

For lunch time, they have a deal of any 3 tacos for $15. They have several tacos to choose from and individually they are $6 – $8.

The tacos were quite small but they had nice fillings. Most of us chose the cochinita pibil (i.e. roast annatto pork) which apparently was the most famous toppings.

Taco de cochinita pibil

Taco de pollo en mole amarillo, taco de pescado frito

Ensalada de nopales y garbanzos – Cactus, chickpea, corn, tomato & parsley – $10

The second exotic dish of this restaurant is cactus salad. The texture and taste were pretty similar to pickled paprika in a salsa. It was very refreshing even for a non-vegetables eater like me!

Ensalada de nopales y garbanzos

Ceviche de pez real – kingfish ceviche, achiote, watermelon, radish & finger lime – $16

The ceviche had a gorgeous presentation. Unfortunately, I think there were way too many other items but the ceviche on the plate. The squid ink watermelon provided an interesting colour to the dish.

Ceviche de pez real

Barbacoa de costilla de res – 12 hours beef short rib, barbacoa sauce, pickled cabbage & baby onions – $32

This dish was the main reason why I decided to come back. I was very tempted to order this on my first visit but $32 and a giant beef rib would not do well for my after-lunch work.

However, I can tell you that the beef rib was very yummy. You don’t even need to use your knife to cut through the meat!

Barbacoa de costilla de res

Flan roto de coco con chocolate y cajeta – Flan of coconut, single origin Mexican chocolate hazelnut & goats milk caramel – $14

I was interested in ordering the flan because of its glowing review in Jugernauts. I think I was over-expecting it a bit too much. It was a nice dessert, but not for $14.

Flan roto de coco con chocolate y cajeta

Bunuelos con chocolate – Mexican doughnuts & chocolate sauce – $12

I love doughnuts… any shapes and sizes! I love them even more when they were freshly made!

Bunuelos con chocolate

The final verdict for El Topo Mexican

I’m pretty sure El Topo Mexican is the only place in Sydney (or Australia) that has crickets and cactus on the menu.

Did you know?

There are two El Topo in this premise: El Topo Basement and El Topo Mexican (on the top floor).

Rating for El Topo Mexican:

7.5 / 10

Taste: 7.5 / 10

Price: $15 – $32 per main dish

Place: 7.5 / 10

Details:

Level 3, 500 Oxford Street, Bondi Junction 2022

+61 2 9387 7828

https://www.theeastern.com.au/venues/

Mar 6, 2015
Chilis American Grill Bar – Singapore

Rating:

6.5 / 10

Taste: 6.5 / 10

Price: S$23 – S$35 main course

Place: 7 / 10

Review:

Chilis American Grill Bar is located strategically right at the heart of Resorts World Sentosa. We went there just after a visit to Universal Studio Singapore because it was just around the corner!

I recommend you to try their Triple Dipper (S$24) as a starter. You could choose three dishes between their starter choices. It would then be placed on a share plate with three sauces of your choice. On this occasion, we chose Texas cheese poppers, Wings over Buffalo, and Southwestern eggrolls. The cheese poppers were pretty exciting with the additional pop from the jalapenos every now and then. The other two were okay.

Chili Shrimp Quesadillas (S$23) was our second dish of the day. Since it is American, they tend to use the word shrimp instead of prawn. Served with house-made pico de gallo and a side of sour cream, the quesadillas could have a little bit more time on the pan. However, the dish was presented pretty nicely.

There is a whole lot of Cs in our next dish: Crispy Honey-Chipotle Chicken Crispers (S$25). It was a spiced up version (with the addition of smoky honey-chipotle sauce) of the regular chicken crispers that came with sweet corn on the cob and homestyle fries. This dish was my personal favourite in the restaurant.

For the last dish, the name escapes me, it could have been Fajita trio (apologies for that). However, I can tell you that it is sort of a hybrid between quesadillas and fajitas with rice. They also have ribs and burgers which we didn’t try this time.

The final verdict for Chili’s American Grill Bar

Being at the heart of Resorts World Sentosa certainly enticed us to visit Chilis American Grill Bar, especially after a full day of fun at the Universal Studio Singapore. The Triple Dipper would certainly get things a bit more exciting to start with.

Details:

Resorts World Sentosa

26 Sentosa Gateway, #01 – 072-074 Singapore 098138

+65 6835-9077

http://www.chilis.sg/index.php

Mar 28, 2014
Ola Lola Café

Rating:

7 / 10 Taste: 7/10

Price: $10 for lunch special

Place: 7/10

Review:

This week we go to a relatively new café in Alexandria (there seemed to be loads of them opening in the last year or so!), Ola Lola cafe. Looking at their brand new website, Ola Lola café was opened on the 12^th of May 2013. It’s a very lively café with lots of bright colours.

One of the owners recommended our first dish, Empanadas. The website also stated that Empanadas was Ola Lola’s signature dish. There are four choices to choose from: beef, chicken, tuna or spinach and at $4.50 each (or 3 for $11.50) I think they were quite a bargain. I’d say the chicken and the beef are the better two. They are served with fresh salsa and I recommend you try it with Chipotle sauce on your table!

Our second meal was the meal of the day that they have for a fix price of $10: Albondigas de la Abuela – meatballs in tomato/Chipotle salsa with cheese and chilli. We were quite amazed when the dish arrived as we got FOUR giant meatballs with a side of salad and two slices of bread. They were pretty good and definitely worth the price!

The final verdict for Ola Lola Cafe

Ola Lola Café is a nice every day café if you happened to live or work around the area. The cafe brings fantastic Latin American hospitality in its service.

Did you know?

In some parts of Southeast Asia (especially Indonesia), empanadas is known as pastel. It is crispier than empanadas and has sweeter taste with chicken and potato as its main fillings.

Details:

39/101 Doody St, Alexandria 2015

02 9317 4687

http://olalola.com.au/

Sep 16, 2013
Fiesta on Oxford

Update: Fiesta on Oxford is currently closed for an unspecified time.

Rating:

7 / 10

8 for its nachos!

Taste: 7/10

Price: $21per person ($38 1-lt Margarita)

Place: 7/10

Review:

This was my second visit to Fiesta on Oxford restaurant, but it was the first time that I got to eat there. For my first visit – colleague’s farewell party, I had to leave early because of other commitments that day. This time, I got the chance to taste the Mexican food my colleagues been talking about.

It was a great place to have a gathering. They have private rooms for office parties and a whole lot of party stuff (Pinata included!). You might want to unwind with a bottle of Sangria or fruit Margarita. This time, we ordered Strawberry Margarita. It was a little bit too sour for my taste, but it was the right punch.

We were supposed to have the tapas for our entrees. Since there was an unavailable one, our first course was served first. It was called Sizzling Hot Fajitas – Chicken. The good thing about Mexican foodis you can have your dish with any meat, in this case chicken. It’s basically a DIY meal. You get to choose how much vegetables, rice, sauces, and meat you want to put in. The rice and meat were served in a hot plate.

For the second one we got Nachos – Regular Beef. It was the perfect size for the three of us. It looked incredibly ‘guilty’ (i.e. tasty) like all nachos supposed to be, but this one also tasted great. The combination of chips, salsa, and cheese was awesome. The beef was so tender and juicy (and tasty). Guacamole was fresh. I think the beef was really the element that made this dish so yummy.

The tapas were the last ones to arrive. It was a combination of Fish Tapas and Soft-shelled Crab Tapas. The fish had sauce all over it. It was an okay dish. The soft-shelled crab was so crispy and it was accompanied by a spicy sauce. They were still pretty, but I guess it was just too simplistic to be the last dish we saw for the day.

The final verdict: We were really impressed with the Nachos. It was tasty, nice size for three, and fantastic guacamole on the side.The strawberry margarita was a bit too sour for us, but when I tasted the other ones they were okay.

Did you know?

This restaurant might be in the vicinity of Bondi Junction, but it was actually a bit further away from the main shopping malls.

Details:

306 Oxford Street, Bondi Junction, NSW 2024

02 9389 3665

http://www.fiestaonoxford.com.au

Sep 13, 2011